From The Inside Out
by Peta2
Summary: Set Season 7, Sleeper. Buffy discovers Spike's activities and reacts with her gut rather than her head.
1. Chapter 1

Title: From The Inside Out

Story by:  
Banner by: **inxsomniax**  
Pairings: Spike/Buffy  
Rating: R to be safe. Unfortunately I have no idea where this fic is heading.  
Genre: All Human  
Betas: Many thanks for the encouragement and enthusiasm.

Warnings: This will be a Timetravel/Dimension travel fic.

Summary: Set Season 7.

**Part One**

Sometimes, it just didn't pay to get out of bed in the morning. More often than not, thinking about Spike for any part of her day resulted in more pain than he was worth.

Except today.

Today, Buffy was betting Spike had never caused her this much pain in all the years she'd known him, and that was truly saying something.

She seemed to be making a habit of it. Killing the only souled vampires in existence. Killing the men who'd had the greatest impact on her life.

Buffy, shaken and dusty, dropped to her knees, hands outstretched and trembling. Her stake fell with a dull thud to the dirt floor, yet she didn't reach for it, her gaze instead lost in those hands that delivered death as a matter of course. That saved people from the monsters of their world and made each day a little bit safer. Or tried to. By what she'd just witnessed, she was fighting a losing battle, especially if those on her side were turning humans faster than she could kill them.

His laughter cracked her abruptly from the study of her hands, and the shaking she couldn't seem to stop. Drew her out of that world of oblivion she longed to become lost in, yes, but that deep, hateful mirth made her want to crumble into the earth as well. She couldn't look, for it made no sense. She had Spike's dust on her hands, trembling on her fingertips, and yet he laughed at her from the side of the basement that she now dubbed Spike's ultimate burial ground.

Tortured eyes lifted from her fascinated study, lifted wearily and with fear she ought not to fear, and she clashed with shock upon the stark blueness of the vampire she'd shared such a complicated part of her life with.

"You're not Spike." He was a damn good interpreter though, resembling the punk vampire right down to the smirk and the scarred eyebrow. The differences lay more in the level of hatred this Spike exuded and the other one had lost. This one was evil, right down to his fake Docs. Before he could utter a word, she knew it. This was the Spike she'd first met all those years ago, not the one whose chest would have been gaping and bloody if he'd been as human as the soul should have made him.

"And you're not the Slayer. At least, you shouldn't be. Girl like you, dying for the world, should be six foot under and floating in the clouds."

Buffy felt sick; that horrid freeze she'd often felt submerged in when she'd first come back threatened to overtake her now, but she couldn't let it. Not until she found out how Spike could be standing before her straight after she'd buried a stake in his chest. How he could be leering at her with evil intent when mere minutes ago he'd been sobbing for her to end his torment.

When he wasn't accusing her with depthless eyes as she ended his very existence.

"I killed you," she said, her voice hoarse as the grief swelled up in her gut.

Spike snorted, letting his eyes roam up her body and then back down to her shoes.

"Believe me, sweetheart, you're not that good. Only way you could kill me is if I let you." He shoved his hands in his jeans pockets and tilted his head, peering at her curiously. "Did I let you?"

The Slayer stared at him, incredulity pushing away the tremendous sense of failure from dusting Spike. "Well, yeah, actually. I'd definitely say your begging me to stop you was your letting me do it." She frowned, wondering if this was some kind of trick, or some kind of word teaser she didn't have a hope of solving.

"Fair cop, Slayer. You got me."

The words were familiar, but the malice was new, and in that moment Buffy snapped out of it and realised once again that this wasn't Spike. Not the true Spike that had been a part of her world for the past four years and counting. Not the Spike who'd been the only one to help her—albeit misguidedly—survive her coming back to life.

"And I'll admit you got me, for a few seconds. But you aren't him. Now tell me who you are and why you're impersonating Spike." She could feel her body start to shake, scared of how she was meant to take action with this new threat when she hadn't quite faced in her heart that she'd just dusted Spike. Souled Spike. Her heart squeezed tight, her nose stung and her eyes began to water, and all of a sudden Buffy was transported to the second in her past when she'd speared Angel through with a sword. For reasons she was unable to face, the pain of that moment rivalled this new one, except the reality then had been that she'd had to do it to save the world. This time she'd killed just to save a soul.

"No need to let your heart go all a quiver. You were right the first time." And Spike turned into Angel, making Buffy gasp and fall back against the wall Spike had earlier been huddled against, her feet stamping his dust into the dirt and making Buffy feel like she was going to vomit.

"A…Angel?" Her voice broke and the tears started to sting her eyes with the effort of repression.

"No, not Angel. Angelus would be closer but even that nightmare of your past was nothing but a toddler when it comes to true evil. We've met before, Slayer. Once. And when you finally work it out—" He laughed, using the voice of Angelus, and shivers of fear of the unknown raced down her spine. "Well, let's just say," Spike said, Angelus gone without even a shimmer in the air, "you won't be celebrating my demise. You might actually get it that I was your one true supporter."

She snapped. "No!." The scream echoed around the darkened basement as Buffy launched herself at Fake-Spike, thoroughly distraught from grief, guilt and anger. He didn't move, didn't even prepare to fight. Seconds later Buffy didn't have to wonder why. Instead, as she sailed right through him and into a swirling vortex of blue light and screaming winds, she had little time to think on that discovery at all before she found herself somewhere that was seriously not where she'd started. No, the only thoughts running through her head as she plowed into a group of surprised shoppers in downtown Sunnydale, was how she'd managed to not break her neck connecting with the basement wall and how much her life sucked to be diving headfirst into another dimensional rip.

Surely things like that could only happen to a person once in their life.


	2. Chapter 2

**Part Two**

While wishing that he could have felt her as she whizzed through him and connected head first with the wall behind him, wishes were for fools, something he was very much not. It was a moot point anyway, as the Slayer sailed right through and into a dimensional hole that had not been there a moment ago. Being the First Great Evil, he should have sensed that such an escape hatch for the Slayer existed. However, he hadn't, and instead of laughing at her collapsed and probably haemorrhaging form on the floor, he was left scratching his head in surprise.

Oh well, if she wasn't here, she couldn't stand in his way. Not that she'd had half a chance at stopping him, anyway. It was only a small niggling concern where she'd actually gone. Nothing to make him alter plans. He'd already achieved what he'd set out to do: have her kill Spike. And what an extra fine dust storm that had turned out to be. He'd learned his lesson with that other major screw up, Angelus. These vamps didn't have the backbone to off themselves, even when they had a soul to make their heads all screwy. If he couldn't make them do it themselves, who better to enrage and do the job for him than the Slayer, and the one who loved them both passionately.

It was awkward to not have orchestrated this disappearance and thus not know exactly the whereabouts of the Slayer, but he'd make do. It wouldn't be too difficult to wreak havoc that even she couldn't repair when she returned. With evil oozing past his fake Spike-skin, the First grinned with immeasurable malice and blinked out of the basement.

The usual, oblivious crowds on the streets of Sunnydale had thinned dramatically in the past weeks. Still relatively busy for a night on the Hellmouth, but totally not comparable to the booming nightlife Buffy now found herself deep within. This crowd was difficult to navigate through, though a piercing scream from a darkened alleyway nearby seemed to spook the hordes a little—just enough at least to finally be able to push her way through without knocking anyone on their ass.

Of course she was only in this new place—that was so much like her old place—a minute before she had to leap into action. Another stupid Sunnydalian at work, wandering down a dark and abandoned alley like vampires didn't exist in their town, even though Buffy knew for a fact most of them were acutely aware of each and every tragedy resulting from living on the Hellmouth.

A flash of bleached hair stopped her in her tracks. She stood transfixed at the opening of the alleyway, experiencing a sudden ache in her heart as she watched Spike fight a particularly greasy-looking vamp in a too shiny leather jacket and muddy jeans. Fight, and win she amended as a cloud of dust replaced 'leather and jeans' vamp and Spike stood alone, dragging on his cigarette and squinting as he pushed the stake back into one of his duster's deep pockets. His soulless swagger was firmly in place as he turned and started off in the opposite direction to where Buffy stood, and she was immediately struck with the need to grab him. To hold him tight and make sure he was real.

Buffy realised she must have made a sound, for Spike stopped, then slowly turned. His eyes showed momentary confusion and Buffy couldn't hold back the impulse that had her holding her breath, waiting for the inevitable shoe to drop. His gaze narrowed and he took a step closer, tipping his head to the side as if the angle that he looked at her was imperative to getting an accurate identification.

Buffy always knew Spike had an expressive face, but now, she saw the exact second he recognised her. Her breath escaped her lungs in a rush of relief.

"I know you," he said, voice curious. "Buffy, right? Haven't seen you since Angelus got sucked into the big rock." His eyes sparkled mischievously and Buffy sucked in another breath. She'd forgotten how animated he'd been. "Not that it stuck," he added.

When Buffy had ever thought of other dimensions—like when she was forced to acknowledge that Glory could well end up opening a rift between them—she'd always imagined them as hell dimensions. It had never occurred to her that there could be another Sunnydale running along, that timelines could be skewed or different outcomes achieved. Really, it should have. Wasn't that the business Anya was in? Changing realities. That wasn't other dimensions, though, unless they contained only shrimp. This, was different. This was her world, but with obviously one vital difference. This world didn't have a Buffy in it.

Almost too afraid of what she'd find out, Buffy tried to work out which words to use to find out what she was both too scared and yet dying to know.

"What year is this?"

Spike smirked and Buffy's stomach sank.

"You got amnesia, Slayer? It's 2003. Year of the Sheep, if I remember correctly, an' I try to remember anything Chinese."

Oblivious to Spike's sneer and all-over-Buffy appraisal, she fell within herself and delved back to those dark days when she felt everything was gone from her and that being the Chosen One would award her nothing but pain.

So, Buffy disappeared after sending Angel to Hell. Ran away and never came back.

For one guilty moment, Buffy approved of her other dimensional self. She'd never admit to it out loud but sometimes she wondered if things might have been much better for everyone if she'd stayed in LA. Cleaner somehow. Faith wouldn't have turned out a power-hungry rogue if she'd had a watcher to admire and instruct her the way a one and only Chosen person was meant to be admired and taught. Dawn may have been created and given to someone who was able to protect her better, and maybe, despite what the others all assured her, the mystical creation of her sister took something from Joyce that her body wasn't able to deal with.

In Buffy's world everything was cause and effect. Doubts suddenly flew through her mind and in one moment of clarity, Buffy knew that if she could discover what had happened to her mother in this dimension, she'd finally know the truth of her mother's death.

"Cat got your tongue?"

Startled, Buffy looked back at the smirking Spike and realised that things could have been very different for him, too. He'd come back for a multitude of reasons, but above all Buffy believed he'd come back to kill her. He was the kind that couldn't take failure; who wouldn't have been able to let go of the bloodied image of a slaughtered slayer left bleeding at his feet.

Mouth dry, Buffy tried to form words. "Is…is Giles here?"

The vampire cocked his head to the side in a move so reminiscent of her Spike that tears suddenly formed a pressure in her throat. Fingers tingling to touch his face, Buffy stomped on the impulse and tried to concentrate on the fact that she wasn't in her world anymore.

"The Watcher?" Spike studied her, wondering what was really going on and having enough instincts to know that his first guess would probably be wrong. "Rupert's…around."

"Wow. You're completely tight-lipped, and so incredibly unlike you." Buffy stood, hands on hips, glaring at the vampire she'd dusted in her world, and waited. She felt a twinge of regret for playing hardball with someone she should be running to embrace as she sputtered every apology she could think of, but this wasn't her Spike. This Spike barely even knew her, let alone felt anything more than loathing for her.

And then he dipped his head and looked at her in that smouldering way he had. The one which younger Buffy had found slightly nauseating and current Buffy wished she could experience for the rest of her life.

"Don't reveal all my secrets to strangers."

Buffy waited for more, for a bit of elaboration, but after another minute she realised that was it, and suddenly 'tight-lipped' seemed a way too generous description for how unhelpful he was being.

"Not sure if you realise it or not, but the definition of stranger is someone you've never met. You've met me before, and hey, tried to kill me. Kind of makes this stranger thing more than a little far-fetched, wouldn't you say?" She felt like crossing her arms and tapping her foot, but the image of Dawn doing exactly that flashed through her mind and Buffy decided to try and be a bit more mature. Though this Spike was irritating the crap out of her and being mature might be more struggle than she was worth.

Suddenly the reservation she'd observed seemed to dissolve and the bad boy stance along with it. Spike relaxed, thrust his hands into his jeans pockets and looked down at his shoes. Having come to some kind of a decision he looked back up and burned her with his gaze.

"Lot of people were hurt you never came back." His voice was curiously devoid of condemnation and Buffy was surprised, knowing how she did the blame and guilt piled on her when she **had **come back in her own world.

"I'm not her, you know." She didn't want to be blamed for this Buffy's choices. But knowing herself as she did, Buffy couldn't help but be on her side, knowing that she'd have decided to do the best that she could for everyone involved. A chill raced down her spine. Was she dead in this world? Had she gone to the Hell dimension but never made it out? Had she never met Lily and realised she had to come back to Sunnydale, her mother and her friends?

There was no doubting Spike's confusion, his face and body language as easy to read as a comic. He looked her up and down, then back up and down again, before finally sweeping her over one last time and fixing on her lips. He licked his own, rubbed his hand over his hair and then flexed his body in preparation of a fight that Buffy had no plans to introduce.

"Funny thing is, you look exactly like her."

Funny thing was, he was right. There was no doubting Spike's powers of observation at all.

"What's even funnier," Buffy confided, feeling testier than she really should, "is that I just arrived in this exciting and fascinating town from another dimension, and one where less than pleasant things are occurring. Oh, did I mention you were dead? Or that I killed you?" Buffy could never have imagined in her wildest dreams how much those words would hurt her. She had to remember this was a different Spike, an unsouled Spike if she could judge his demeanour accurately, and right now she needed answers and a direction to head to try and find her way home. "Oh, and the real humdinger? When I went to kill you again, I passed straight through you and instead of gaining a concussion from slamming into a brick wall, I find myself here." She looked around her and grimaced. "Any chance this is Kansas?"

She should have felt repentant, but the look of pure horror on Spike's face made her laugh. For the moment, she could ignore the truth, that she'd banished Spike from her world forever by turning him to dust. She could grieve later, when she didn't have the vampire's face right in front of her.

"Well," Spike said, staring at her with a new respect. "Welcome to SunnyD. It isn't much, but I guarantee you'll feel at home."


	3. Chapter 3

**Part Three**

Spike walked, Buffy tagging along beside him, questions spinning around her head so fast she couldn't focus. She watched instead. Watched the confident lope that had been his hallmark pre-chip, watched the back of his head and marvelled at the strong hair gel that kept his hair from moving even a little. Watched him smoke a cigarette and wondered if he'd stop if he had a soul like her Spike had.

It was when they were bearing down on Giles's door that she finally realised where her thoughts had taken her. This Spike still oozed confidence and purpose, something of which her Spike had been robbed of the second he'd realised the Initiative had stolen his life. But if he had no chip…what was going on here?

Buffy snatched at the coat sleeve, her fingers slipping on the leather.

"Spike, stop."

He did, dead in his tracks. Then he spun on his heel, grabbed her and pushed her into the bushes, crouching down low beside her and indicating she should shut her mouth or he'd eat her to make sure of it.

She truly hated to admit it, but the show of his dislike and violence gave her a thrill.

Giles's door opened and it was all Buffy could do to hold in the cry of distress as she saw what her watcher looked like in a world where she'd never returned. He was dishevelled, his eyes bleary.

"You really need to get a grip, old man."

Buffy looked closer and felt the familiar disfavour she'd felt whenever she'd seen Wesley. Which hadn't been for a long time. Seeing him now as he was then, she was wishing it'd been even longer.

"Why don't you poke your nose into your own slay—I mean, business, and leave me to worry about mine?" There was a darkness in Giles's voice that Buffy didn't get to hear often, and now she could see why. It was damn scary, which she had to admit was a relief from Wesley's usual patronising tone.

"For God's sake, man. It has been five years. She's gone and you know it. Stop torturing yourself and just let her go."

The look in Giles's eye had Buffy grabbing Spike's hand, clutching it tightly.

"I know nothing of the sort. I have heard nothing of what happened to my Slayer, and it might do you well to remember your training. If something had happened and your slayer was dead, you would feel the severing. I have not felt it, so do not tell me how I should conduct myself as I search for her. If I have to search for another five years, I bloody well will. Now kindly vacate my welcome mat and go entertain your own slayer. She seems to enjoy you, though I rather question why."

Delivering his acerbic opinion, Giles slammed his door in the younger watcher's face, leaving Wesley to stare angrily at it before turning and walking smartly away.

Spike held onto Buffy's hand, holding her in place till he could hear the watcher return to his car and the engine roar to a start. No spluttering old faithful for this watcher, not now he had a voracious young slayer he was putting it to regular.

They finally stood and Buffy turned saucer-shaped eyes to Spike and barely stopped herself from laughing out loud. Unfortunately, she snorted instead.

"Oh. My. God. Wesley is boinking his slayer? Who is it?" Reason dictated that in her world, the only living slayer besides herself was Faith. But no way would Faith have let Wes lay a finger on her, even as free as she was with her affections. Hell, she'd nearly killed Xander and he was a little closer to Faith's league than Wes was.

"If you mean shagging, then your answer would be yes. As to who it is, was forgetting you wouldn't know. Bird by the name of Faith. Real piece of work, that one. Wanker doesn't even realise she's got him wound right round her little finger."

Oh he was wound all right, even Buffy could see that. Giving into the impulse, she giggled. Spike looked sharply at her, shocked at the sound and her apparent ease as she stood beside him. Then he noticed they were still holding hands and he flung it away, rubbing it against his pants leg as if slayer touch was repulsive. Buffy realised that for this Spike, it probably was.

It made her feel sad.

Things were seriously different about this place. So far it seemed good, if a little weird. Nothing like the Sunnydale she'd come from. The one where everything was shaping up to go to Hell in a hand basket. Nightmares of potential slayers being slaughtered by robed monks wielding wickedly sharp daggers, visits from those dead to give messages of being devoured from beneath them, Spike turning the populace into vamps. None of it made sense, and all of it made Buffy's tingly sense of impeding doom set her teeth on edge.

And wow, Faith was still around, rather than being a prison inmate for killing one of the mayor's minions. Maybe her guess about that was right on the money. All Faith had needed was some support and a place to shine. A place where she'd never met or had to be compared to Buffy.

That feeling of sadness was spreading.

The many possibilities about this place made her head spin. Buffy wanted to know it all; she wanted to know why Giles was still looking for her rather than giving up when in her world he couldn't wait to abandon her and return to his life in England. She wanted to know why an unchipped Spike was killing other vampires and saving the residential idiots wandering the alleys at night in a town renowned for its mortality rate. She wanted to know if her friends had continued looking like Giles had, or if her mother had survived the appearance of Dawn rather than become a resident of one of the many cemeteries the town had to offer.

Had Spike fallen in love with Faith and that's why he was trying to be good?

Suddenly, Buffy didn't want to know the answer. She looked up and that penetrating blue stare he had seemed to delve right to the depths of her soul, and she shuddered. It wasn't him, not her Spike and as often as she reminded herself of that fact, it didn't end up mattering in the slightest. Because he was completely the Spike she thought she knew. Only she never really had known him, had she? Not if she didn't even need to think before she plunged her stake into his chest.

Buffy could see a million questions forming in that gaze, the one she wanted to dive into and never break back to the surface. A million questions she was hesitant to answer until she had a few answers of her own. And for that she needed to see Giles, even though she knew how cruel it was going to be.

In the end Spike didn't lend his voice to even one question, choosing to turn himself off from her and nod toward the closed door. They could hear loud music seeping through the cracks of the apartment and Buffy's eyes widened. She'd never known Giles like this. He'd always been very absorbed in whatever he did, but this was still a side of Giles she'd never been privileged to know. If she had, perhaps he wouldn't have been so quick to leave her. Maybe he'd have invested a little of himself in her like she'd invested most of herself in him.

"Right then." Spike turned his back on her, then as if remembering who he was with and who had just confessed to dusting him in another world, he spun so fast he nearly fell over. "After you, Slayer."


	4. Chapter 4

**Part Four**

Spike, the Gentleman, lasted all of two seconds in the face of Buffy's indecision. He took the risk and gave her a free shot at his back, then stomped to the watcher's door and flung it open. Before Buffy could cry out a warning to Giles, he'd thumped his way over the threshold—one that he shouldn't have been able to unless he had at some stage been invited into the sanctity within.

There was a squeal from inside and Buffy found her feet, taking flight through the door to pounce to the rescue. Only once she was inside did she realise that the girly scream couldn't have been from the reserved man she'd known as Giles—nor could Xander have gotten away with quite that pitch—and she came face to face with Dawn, now wrapped in Spike's arms and giggling madly.

"Did you hear him?" she was asking, and Spike shook with matching laughter.

"Sure did, Bit. After four or so years you'd think the wanker would learn to back off a tad."

Giles sat at his table, an ancient tome spread out before him as he nursed a steaming cup of tea even while he eyed off the bottle of spirits he had beside the book.

"The pompous arse." Giles was yet to look up from his study, sipping slowly at his tea. Buffy stood in confusion, watching the scene and wondering why this relaxed, friendly moment had never existed between these three people in her world. She didn't want to be petty, but she was beginning to feel a little jealous.

"Rupert," Spike said, barely glancing at the man as he pushed a still giggling Dawn toward the couch where her things were strewn in the usual Dawn-disorder. "Someone here to see you."

Giles raised weary eyes, his reluctance to greet anyone obvious. As soon as he realised who she was, his face drained of colour.

"Buffy?"

She could throttle Spike for being so callous. It was going to hurt, admitting to this Giles that she wasn't the Buffy for whom he'd spent five years searching. Still, it had to be done because as much as she knew this man, she also didn't. Too much was different here and Buffy could already sense the line that stood between her experiences and the ones this group had travelled.

"Not your Buffy," she hurried to explain, hand up to hold him back. She didn't want to deprive him of an emotional reunion hug, one that she herself wasn't prepared for, but it would feel wrong—for both of them Especially when she was still kind of annoyed that her Giles was yet to return and support her as a watcher was supposed to while this one had never left.

"Not my…then whose Buffy are you?" His voice was hard, like he'd suddenly discovered an evil impersonator in his home and he wouldn't give an inch in the way of comfort.

"Wow." She studied him quickly, saw the lines around eyes and mouth that seemed deeper than those owned by her Giles, and felt a clenching in her gut. Undoubtedly her friends had suffered when she'd died, leaving them to control the Hellmouth on their own, but at least they'd known where she was. Well, yeah, they _should _have known where she was. This Giles, in this reality, had no idea what had happened to her and had obviously lived in perpetual torment for the five years of her absence. She shouldn't be so surprised, recalling what he'd been like when he'd discovered the prophecy stating that the Master was going to be the one to kill her. How distraught he'd been when he realised there was nothing he was able to do about it.

Other than chewing Willow out for being irresponsible with her magic, he'd not shown this level of emotion when Buffy had returned from the grave. Not even when she'd revealed she'd been torn out of Heaven. Instead of being transparent with his grief, he'd chosen to run. On second thought, Buffy was starting to appreciate this Giles a whole lot better. He might be hardened, but he tipped the balance with his daunting levels of compassion and drive to find her. Rescue her. He really didn't know what fate this world's Buffy had encountered, and his determination to find her no matter what was a major credit to him.

Everyone in the room stared at her, waiting, she supposed, for her to actually answer Giles's question.

"Oh. Yeah. I'm Buffy," she said, her voice peppier than usual and leaving her with a sickly feeling that she'd turned into the Buffybot. "But from another dimension. Nice to meet you."

Even though she was used to dropping the odd bombshell here and there, it was strangely disconcerting to have all three of them staring at her as if she'd sprung another head. Not that she wasn't already the worst doppelganger in Giles's eyes to appear out of nowhere.

"Another dimension?" Giles asked, but Buffy got the feeling he wasn't really expecting her to confirm what she'd already said. "How…fascinating." But his voice was flat, and as soon as he had expelled the words he fell into his chair and caved into the lure of his scotch. Obviously her appearance was anything _but_ fascinating.

No one spoke for at least a minute and Buffy started to feel antsy.

"Gee, and here was I thinking my sudden appearance from another dimension might actually receive a raised eyebrow at least."

"You're in Sunnydale…where you come from? You haven't…been missing?" There was no mistaking the appeal behind those fractured sentences and Buffy took pity on her watcher. She knew this meeting could be anything but easy for him. Or joyful. She didn't expect him to get as excited meeting her as he would if his own Slayer had walked through that door. Still, it was a bit of a letdown that no one was happy to see her. Even Dawn was yet to treat her as anything but a curiosity.

"I think coming from another dimension is kind of…cool," said Dawn, and Buffy felt grateful.

"Yes, but you think the whelp's bomb of a car is cool." Spike ruffled the teenager's hair and she squealed and whapped his shoulder. She turned, then, to pick up her things and pack them into a very worn backpack.

Giles hadn't stopped staring at her, though, so Buffy smiled gently and nodded. "Yes. I mean, I died for a while, but that only took for a few months before Willow dragged me back. But mostly I've been in Sunnydale. Council doesn't pay me to have vacations. Or, you know, pay me at all." She beamed, and once again had the sensation she was channelling the now defunct pile of fake skin and decimated circuitry that had once made up the irritating bot Spike had had Warren build.

Not so long ago, talking of her return trip from Heaven made her stomach lurch with homesickness. And pain. The kind of pain where you felt your heart had been ripped out and your eyes were going to sting with tears for the rest of your life.

"I'm sorry, could you please say that again?" Giles stared at her, his eyes boring into her with shock.

"Which part?"

Dawn bounced forward, her eagerness to learn more about the enigma standing in front of her obvious. "I think he means the dead part. Were you in Hell? Is that why Willow brought you back? And whoa. Willow isn't uber powerful witch person here, unless people aren't telling me things. Which would so not be the first time." She glared accusingly at first Spike, and then Giles.

"Not so much, no." And here came the confession that always put people on edge. Not that Buffy had confided in that many. "As far as I know I was in Heaven. You know, warm, loved, et cetera, et cetera. Felt everyone was all safe and getting on with it and I'd earned my rest."

Spike got over the shock first. "When did this happen? When did you die?"

Buffy turned to Dawn, took in how exactly the same she was to her Dawn and wondered what the story was here with the three of them. If Buffy herself didn't exist in this world, then who had the monks left the responsibility of Dawn to? Whose little sister had she become and how did they manage to keep Glory from using her to her own ends?

"Did you meet Glory?"

"Hell bitch with the bad home perm? Yeah, she might have crossed our path." Spike was again with the tight-lippyness and Buffy groaned. She really wasn't up to doing all the work.

"Okay, long story short. Monks made me a little sister: Dawn. We shared the same blood, I dove off the tower in her place to close the rift. Splat. Heaven. Willow yadda yadda. No more Heaven and many, many more demons."

Giles's jaw dropped, then he quickly snapped his mouth shut and took up his glass of scotch, allowing more than a mouthful to slide down his throat.

Buffy looked at Dawn, who looked at her completely stunned. Finally it clicked. The monks had given her Dawn to protect, but in this world she hadn't been around.

"Is Faith your sister in this world?" Buffy asked innocently.

Spike exploded. "Not bloody likely. Dawn is my daughter."


	5. Chapter 5

Thanks go to my betas, Holly and dawn, and to all those reading this fic. Your support has really helped me stay excited about writing this fic. Thank you all. Hope you enjoy what is yet to come.

**Part Five**

Spike had a daughter.

Dawn was Spike's daughter.

Her _sister _was Spike's _daughter_.

Buffy could admit it; she was struggling. Really, really struggling with this revelation. It kind of made sense, though, or at the very least it explained some things. Now she understood why he was fighting for their side; he had a living, breathing daughter to protect. One he apparently wasn't snacking on.

"Were those monks completely high?" She couldn't help it. What kind of sane, religious being gave a mystical key made human into the caring hands of a vampire? "I mean, they had to be nuttier than a Snickers bar."

Spike's jaw clenched in outrage, his hands forming fists. Fortunately for Buffy, he stood still and just glared at her. "We've dealt with the realities of this situation and don't need some little upstart from some place else to waltz in and tell us the go of things. You'd be wise to shut your trap." Done with her, he turned to Dawn and grabbed her arm. "Time for us to be getting home." He led her to the door, right through her objections, and then they were gone, leaving Buffy with Giles and an awkwardness she rarely felt in her watcher's presence.

If she didn't know any better she'd think he'd dismissed her as well, allowing him to go back to his musty old book and the bottled reason behind his physical demise. It was just as well Buffy had learned to be less sensitive to the cold shoulder.

"So, that must have thrown you all for a loop."

Giles looked up, his expression uncomprehending. "Pardon me?"

"Spike showing up with a daughter. One that required real food instead of blood." She paused for just a fraction, just long enough to see Giles's lips start to move. "So, who is she?"

"Who is who?" he spluttered, absently latching a finger around the tea cup handle and bringing it to his lips. An excellent stalling effort, Buffy mused.

"Dawn's mother. Her father is a vampire so I'm assuming her mother must be human?"

"Oh." His eyes went round as saucers and he quickly seized a sip from the delicate china cup. "No one you, er, would know." Indicating the dismissal of the subject, he delved deeply into his book, face close to the pages as if shutting her out of his sight would get rid of the topic completely. Lucky for Buffy she knew Giles's every move. And she knew that pushing beyond his boundaries might earn her a tsk of impatience but it would also reward her with information.

"Someone I have never known or someone I'm unlikely to know because I'm from a different world? Because you'd be surprised at how many people I know, from Spike's present and his past."

With a burst of impatience, Giles snatched the glasses from his face and glared at her, even though Buffy could see that he wished with all he was that she was his own slayer. "Who Dawn's mother might be is completely irrelevant. As I am sure you are aware, she was made by monks from mystical energy, so whatever story was behind her existence is completely fabricated."

"So what you're saying is, one day you'll tell me the truth about Dawn's parentage, but not right now?"

"That is exactly what I am saying," Giles confirmed, a small smile playing at the corner of his lips.

"Great. So, whatcha reading?" She made a half-hearted attempt to look at the book's browned pages, but made sense of nothing before she managed to snag a chair and sit down.

"Nothing in particular. I made a promise to myself that I would read every book in my possession, and many more that were not, in order to find my Buffy. This is tonight's effort. I've borrowed it from Wesley, in spite of my better judgement. Perhaps we should discuss how it is you've come to be here and work on getting you back?"

For one breathless minute, Buffy didn't want to go back. Something bad was happening in the place she'd come from, and that was also now a world without Spike. Not a brash, insolent Spike who did the right thing to protect his human daughter—forced to just like her Spike had been because of a chip in his brain. A Spike that loved her with all his heart—with all his soul. And one she will never be able to forgive herself for dusting, even though she knew deep down that it was the wrong response. Buffy couldn't get it out of her head that she'd just bought into some evil scheme, carrying out their greatest desire by ridding her side of Spike. They'd been manipulated, and she'd given them the upper hand. No, it wasn't a fleeting thought that made her not want to go back. It was a gut wrenching certainty that she had very little to go back for. Whatever it was that would greet her if she got back there, it could take Spike's and Angelus's face with barely a shimmer, spreading the pain with every personal trait it employed.

"I don't know what to tell you," she said, even though Buffy knew it was a lie. She'd already started by sharing how she'd come to be back in the world.

Giles reached across the table and took her hand in his. His hands were warmed from the tea. "How about we start with the truth?"

"That was her, wasn't it?" There was one thing of which no one could ever accuse Dawn, and that was stupid. She picked up on subtleties that others wished she'd stay ignorant of, and she could tell this was one of those times. "Well, not her her," she compounded, causing herself to cringe when she saw Spike's jaw clench tight enough to crack his fangs. "But you know, our dimension her if she was here and that her was back in her dimension. See?"

"No, I don't bloody see," Spike confided. "Nothing in that sentence made one lick of sense, Bit."

She sighed, the weight of the world on her shoulders. "My mother is Buffy Summers."

The statement was so bold that Spike nearly hyperventilated.

"Who told you that?"

"Oh come on, Dad. Before we found out the Monks made me out of a fancy ball of lightning, you and Uncle Giles were searching high and low for her. There is no way you would have put so much energy into searching for a slayer unless she meant something to you. And besides, obviously I was right because right now, you didn't deny it."

She was so smug only because she'd been a good student. Her teacher wasn't likely to win best father in the world, particularly as he had large quantities of blood on his hands, but he was a damn good teacher when the occasion called for it. And he'd taught Dawn to be confident, how to best her peers and beyond, how to win any pissing contest a mere mortal might throw her way, and much more besides. She was the daughter of a vampire and the best slayer in history, and Spike was proud of that fact, even if the monks had fucked with his memories.

He knew Dawn wasn't really his daughter; he knew he could likely eat her and get the biggest high of his life. While the brain might process the facts, however, the heart knew better. Dawn was his daughter through and through, and she was a part of the Slayer he'd admired so long ago. If that was all any of them could have of her, Spike wasn't going to lose it. If for the old man's sake and no one else's. Though, he _was_ rather fond of the smile Dawn brought to Joyce's face as well.

"No, don't suppose I did." Confirming that Buffy Summers had been the monk's idea of a mother for Dawn didn't mean he had to elaborate on the subject. As much as his daughter's huge, imploring eyes made him waver. The night had taken on an unsavoury turn for the worst with the appearance of the Slayer's double from another world; Spike was loathe to make it worse. He already felt more than a little off kilter for seeing her again.

"I'd like to spend some time with her," Dawn said, and Spike stopped dead in his tracks.

"Over my dead body," he exploded, then cringed while he waited for the obvious taunt to pass his daughter's lips. When no words came, he groaned at the shit-eating grin that twisted her lips.

It was a marvel to him how easily he'd come to adopt more human emotions. He felt such sadness for Dawn; he understood that every girl would like a relationship with her mum, but this time it just wasn't possible. Not only was Dawn literally motherless in the way all monk-made girls from balls of energy would be, they had no real idea where the Slayer was. Or if she was still alive.

Spike had had no idea what to do with a baby, and with no Dru on his coat sleeve at the time, his first impulse had strangely been to seek help and answers, rather than having a quick entrée before the nightly main meal. Turning to the slayer would have been a knee-jerk reaction, but with her babe in his arms, smelling so strongly of her scent, he turned instead to her watcher. Between them they'd come to an uneasy agreement. Rupert Giles would help Spike raise a baby—without questioning how Buffy could possibly be the child's mother—and Spike would help the watcher locate his Chosen One. The old man had been a godsend to Spike and they'd managed to raise Dawn as well as they could, with a lot of grandmotherly love thrown in by the slayer's mum, Joyce. Spike had struggled to uphold his end of the bargain, however. No matter how far or how wide their search extended, he'd never been able to find her. Had never managed to even lay eyes on her. Not since he'd left her on the losing end of her altercation with Angelus.

"Look, Dawn." He wished he could make this easier for his girl, but there was nothing to be gained for the teen by hanging around an older, hardened slayer who was no more her mother than…than…well not him as her father because as much as the monks fucked up by giving her to him to raise, he was still as much a father as any other could be. Unlike this dimension hopping Buffy, who at the very most could only give her a sister's love.

A sister's love was not enough for Dawn. She'd want more. She deserved more. If only he could have found Buffy…

"Dawn, it isn't her. She might have the Slayer's name, the Slayer's face, and the Slayer's fine looking ass, but she's not the Slayer. Not _our _Slayer. And she never bloody will be."

Dawn looked far from crushed, for which he was grateful. However, she looked determined, and that was something that made him equally uncomfortable.

"Dad, I know she's not my mother. I'm never going to meet her," she admitted, and at last the sadness crept into her voice. "But this is my chance to find out what she might have been like. Grandma Joyce can only tell me so much, you know? And obviously she doesn't even know who I really am or she'd have told me a lot more. A photo can only tell me what my mother looked like. I want to know what kind of person she was on the inside. This Buffy can help me with that. I have to know how she could give me up."

Was times like these that made Spike believe that if he could find any of the monks responsible for making him a dad, he'd pop their head right off their shoulders and drink from their brain stem.

"She didn't give you up, Dawn. Those fucking mongrel monks only made us _think _she gave you up." He stood in the street now, feeling riled up and ready to test this newfound commitment to the human race by snapping someone's neck. Arms crossed, legs spread in a threatening stance, he sometimes forgot that he was totally unable to intimidate his daughter.

"Those monks made me, sure. But I don't have sparkly ball energy running through my veins. We found out true enough after Glory's goon cut me up that Grandma Joyce's blood matches mine. At the time she and I thought that was just lucky. Now I know different. It matched because she's family—which we are so going to talk about later, that you kept that from me. _Buffy's _blood matches mine. She_ is_ my mother, as much as you hate to think so."

Well she had that dead to rights. He hated it as much as he hated Angel's wide and shiny forehead. As much as he was going to hate the conversation about why he'd never told her about her mother—or informed Joyce that her granddaughter had been part of her life these last five years.

His jaw clenched and Spike fumbled for an answer, a way to end this torture so he could get home and watch his soaps while Dawn got herself off to bed. And then he had it. That age old human response to all things adults wanted to avoid. He turned and started walking again, tossing all he was willing to give her over his shoulder.

"I'll think about it."


	6. Chapter 6

Part Six

Like any man becoming a father for the first time, the day his baby daughter was placed into his arms would forever be the most amazing one he'd ever experienced. It even topped the night Dru had given him his own new life.

Taking possession of his daughter had of course been unconventional; how many men received their baby from the arms of a mottled grey demon imparting the news that the child's mother had only lived long enough to share the father's identity, before then disappearing in a cloud of smoke? Wasn't like he'd really had reason to run; Spike couldn't have hurt the bastard when he had a shiny, wailing babe wriggling about in his arms. Bugger could have at least cared enough to ensure the Bit's father hadn't chowed down on her before scarpering.

Even though Dawn was really only two years old, she'd grown up faster under Spike's wing as he'd traipsed from one dimension to another, searching for her mother. On regaling Giles with the story, the watcher had been intrigued by the description of the demon that had delivered Dawn into Spike's world, and thus had begun months of research. He'd believed that identifying the type of demon would help them in mounting a more informed search effort for the Slayer. He'd discovered the demon was a courier type that had access to all dimensions, who travelled to and fro with an ease other demons could only aspire to.

They were also notorious liars.

Luckily, Spike understood the Watcher's logic. He was a fists and fangs kind of bloke; waiting around while the tweedy graduate had delved into every book he could lay his hands on took all kinds of patience that no one had ever dared suggest Spike possessed.

Still, identifying the demon had given them something.

It had given them a place to start.

If a dimensional courier had been used to bring Dawn to her father, then Buffy had to have been somewhere other than in their world. At first Spike had travelled on his own, looking for any sign that the Slayer had been there, or anywhere, even if only for a second. He'd found nothing. So they'd looked harder—no small feat when suddenly they'd had Glory on their tails. Still, there was one thing the hellbitch hadn't been capable of, though torture and murder were things she'd achieved with ease. She couldn't leave the dimension—couldn't find openings to other ones that could perhaps return her home. She'd needed Dawn for that, and luckily for them Spike had been able to take the girl with him while he continued the search.

The reason for his passionate effort had been personal. Spike admitted it to no one, not even to himself, but he owed Buffy something. He'd disregarded her life when he'd left her defenceless against Angelus. He'd spent the night with her before the ultimate confrontation, making plans—schemes—to take Angelus down, making delicious designs on her body while she lost herself to sensation, if just for an hour. Or at least, that's what Spike remembered of that night. Expressing all his frustrations with Dru to the Slayer, and then falling under her spell as he removed her clothing and helped her relax before the big showdown. His memory was good—if only the monks had played fair.

Truthfully they had no need for a slayer. The new bird, Faith, seemed to be living up to the job. Finding Buffy and bringing her back home was for no reason other than to mend broken hearts. The watcher had been a mess, and Joyce couldn't have been more broken if she'd tried. Still, Spike showing up with the moppet that resembled her missing daughter had perked the woman up a little. Had given Rupert new drive as well as a direction to his life. That the well had dried up and offered no new places to look meant that they were all slowly dying again. The loss of hope was a tragedy that had seemed all but delivered, until Buffy Summers had arrived on their doorstep.

Dawn had walked into the apartment, letting the front door bang shut. Giles jumped in his seat at the table, his glasses askew on his face as he looked up, bleary eyed at the teenager he considered his…well, granddaughter, but he'd not expressly told anyone that.

"Dawn," he admonished. "How nice of you to knock."

"Yeah, yeah, I know you're shocked. You need a shower." She busied herself with cleaning up, picking up cups and glasses and rushing them to the kitchen in a whirlwind of energy that made Giles feel slightly queasy.

"What are you doing here? Didn't you only just leave with your father?"

Dawn stopped moving, looked at him strangely, then strode to the window and hauled the curtain back, allowing jarring arrows of sunlight to spear his head and leave him wounded.

"Gah! Light. Dawn, it burns. Do shut it off."

Dawn giggled, moving back to the kitchen and depressing the switch on the kettle to start the process of boiling water. "You need coffee."

"Blast you, girl. Stop telling me what I need."

"She may be right, Giles." Buffy walked out of Giles's bedroom, draped in one of his old terry robes, yawning dramatically into her hand until her jaw cracked. "You do need coffee. You're super grouchy this morning. At the very least, I need coffee. Dawn, you know where it is? My Giles never kept it."

Dawn remained speechless for just under a minute, then she opened a cupboard door and slammed the jar of instant down on the bench, following it with two bowls, two spoons and a selection of cereals.

"So."

Buffy filled her bowl and then watched Dawn, waiting for the inquisition to begin. She'd spent half the night trying to work out why the identity of Dawn's mother was a State secret. Then, when she'd concluded that she must be the girl's biological mother, and recovered from the shock, what would happen when she woke up and found Dawn back visiting? Her sister Dawn's first question would have been, 'how could you give me up?' and Buffy dreaded this world's Dawn hitting her with that. How was she supposed to know the answer to such a question? Trying to put herself in her own, younger shoes was hopeless. Buffy had never been pregnant, thank God, and as close as she could get to how she may have felt given the same situation was to know that none of her friends, none of her family, and ultimately none of her vampires had ever been given up on. Therefore, Buffy had to conclude that, in this world, she wouldn't have given her child up either. The new conclusions were less favourable. Perhaps the baby had been stolen from her.

Or perhaps she was dead.

"So," Buffy nudged, eager to get this over with.

"You died for me in your world. Do you think my mother died for me in this one?"

He was going to skin her alive.

Dawn was gone when he awoke. Ordinarily that wouldn't have worried him, but before he'd put head to pillow he'd left his headstrong daughter a strongly worded note to not go anywhere near Buffy Summers. This morning he'd found the piece of paper artfully draped on the floor in a place where it could be easily missed. He had every reason to believe Dawn had placed it there on purpose so as to pretend she'd never seen it.

The cunning little snake.

Downing his usual mug of breakfast claret with unusual speed, Spike tossed the mug in the sink, wiped his mouth and donned his coat. He thought about phoning ahead but he didn't want to warn her he was coming. She was going to be grounded for a month for going against his wishes, and she'd want to hope he calmed down by the time he got her to Joyce's. Even after all these years, and his more than adequate raising of her unknown granddaughter, the woman still got jumpy when he showed up ticked off. Once a vampire, always a vampire he figured.

He had a pretty good deal in SunnyD. Back in the day when he and Dru had first shown up in this tin-pot town, you'd never have been able to make him believe he'd drag his princess half way across the continent, kicking and screaming, before returning with a daughter and no vampire lover on his arm. Not in a million years would he have considered slipping it to the Slayer, impregnating her with his obviously lethal little runners, all the while contemplating helping her save the world, for puppies and kittens and Manchester United. Yet he had. Or, the monks had made him think he had. He still wasn't entirely clear on what had occurred that fateful night, and what hadn't. Obviously his little guys weren't as alive as Dawn's existence would have him believe, but other than that, whether he had slept with the Slayer or not was entirely the knowledge of the now defunct religious group that had made him a daddy.

He'd send them flowers if he could give a fuck about them.

Most of the demons in town believed he'd turned soft. A few lethal fights had changed that attitude, but Spike didn't deny he'd changed sides. He'd had to. How was he going to protect his human daughter when he ran with the wrong crowd? Spike was many things, but stupid wasn't one of them. And even though he'd like to deny it on occasion, Dawn had family that didn't consist of just himself. She had Joyce, and Spike wasn't going to deprive his daughter of that connection. She had Rupert—and all together they made a fun little family unit, even though some had remained oblivious to the blood linking them together.

But it would only have worked if he'd turned from killing humans, to protecting them instead.

He hated to admit it, but Spike liked these people. That the watcher had hung around when his slayer had never returned, and presumed by all to be dead, showed an immense depth of character that Spike couldn't help but admire. If he'd had to have a daughter, he was glad the monks had helped him find his place amongst them, giving both he and Dawn a home.

And if he thought of his slayer more often than not, well, that was his little secret.


	7. Chapter 7

**AN: **About 18 months ago, my now 10 year old autistic son deleted EVERYTHING in my files. That included fics never posted, chapters never posted, plot notes, fic ideas etc. As you can imagine, I was pretty devastated. Through various searches through my emails, I've managed to find a few things. A chapter for this fic being one of them. There might be another one ;) I am hoping I get some inspiration to get back to work on it. Here's hoping, right?

Part Seven

"She dusted me, you know." Spike slammed through Giles's front door, panting despite not having the need to take one single breath the whole trip over. Just as he'd expected, Dawn and the Slayer were sitting all comfy-like on the couch, no doubt talking about him and his past relationship with Buffy. He really didn't want them talking about anything, let alone that.

His entrance had brought about a silence that never followed Dawn for long. Even Giles stared at him, taken aback by his declaration. The glimpse he'd caught of the Slayer's face as he'd burst through the door had been happy, the smile on her lips quite captivating, even though he was loathe to admit it. Now he'd robbed her of that, leaving him completely buggered as to how the reminder of his own staking at her hands had somehow broken her heart.

"Do you have the gang here?"

Giles started, then looked at Buffy suspiciously. "You mean gangs on PCP? I'm sure the official line is that Sunnydale is plagued by them."

Buffy rolled her eyes impatiently. "No, I meant _the_ gang. Willow, Xander, Any…anyone… In my world we have research parties all the time to work out how to kill the Big Bad of the month." At Giles's sad head shake in the negative, Buffy sighed. In many ways she was jealous of how things had turned out in this world, but to not have her friends around and so involved in her life, she didn't think she'd enjoy that, despite the damage they wrought on occasion. "Well, back home there's currently a Big Bad that has managed to manipulate my reaction to something Spike did so that I had no choice but to…dust him." She finished on such a mellow tone that even Dawn and Giles struggled to keep the melancholy in check. Spike had no such fight on his hands.

"Bloody sure I've done many a thing to piss you off, Slayer. In _your _world. What the fuck did I do that ticked you off so much that it finally pushed the wrong button?"

Spike was horrified to see the first tear trickle a line of grief down her cheek.

"My Spike got a soul…because he loved me." The declaration had the power to move everyone. Even Spike stood flummoxed. Remembering the event seemed to sap Buffy's strength, her will to tell the story not strong at all, but knowing it was better for her to explain it now than to let it simmer. She was done keeping things to herself. She'd been propelled into this new world for a reason, and even if it was just a bit of cheap therapy, Buffy was going to seize it with both hands. "Then, he killed a ton of people and buried them in the basement of some house. I don't think he remembered doing it. It was like he'd been brainwashed or—been hypnotised or something, maybe? But he lured me to the house and they all rose at the same time and were planning to kill me. He was trying to bite me…my blood…he snapped out of it and collapsed in shock. You could see the second his soul kicked in and he realised he'd killed all those people." Silence was absolute. Buffy could hear the ticking clock on the wall and it reminded her of all the time Spike no longer had in the world. She sniffled, overcome with the desire to have him back so badly that her hands shook. "He begged me to end his torment and…I did. I wasn't thinking so much as—"

"Reacting?" Giles patted her hand sympathetically as she nodded her gratitude.

This Slayer was strong, Spike had to give her that. He'd lay bets that she'd never listened to him a day of her life, and yet she'd chosen to stake him the second he'd begged like a baby. Yet here, on his turf, she took stock of the horrified glare of his daughter, the saddened shock of her watcher, and she wiped all traces of grief from her face and stood defiant.

"Nothing any of you could say…could make me feel worse than I already do. I know I was played. Someone or something there tricked me, and I fell for it. Spike was my ally; I know he didn't mean to kill those people. I…I _think_ he didn't mean it. No, he had a soul. I _know _he would never have hurt those people if something hadn't been controlling him."

"He had a soul?" Funny, this Giles seemed far more impressed than her own. Buffy almost giggled when the watcher chanced a glance at Spike and the vampire suddenly seemed to stand menacingly over them all.

"No fucking way that will ever be happening in this world. Isn't it enough I hold down the fort while that other wanker is too busy fucking his slayer to send her out to do her job?" There was a tick in the corner of his eye Buffy had never noticed before. She wanted to rest her finger against it, gently, to see if it would sooth his torment. To see if it would sooth _her_ torment.

It was hard to remember this wasn't her Spike. He wasn't the vampire that had held her while she cried for losing Heaven, or the one who'd protected Dawn while she was dead. He wasn't the Spike who had fallen in love with her and in order to prove how much, he'd fought for his soul. And Buffy had never thanked him. She'd never thanked him for changing, told him she could see what he'd done and she was grateful for it. She'd never gone that far because she'd never been able to admit that she felt anything for him. So why did his loss leave a crushing pain in her chest?

This was the version of Spike Buffy had lost the chance to know. This one was brash and bold and oozed sexually dangerous prowess, all things her Spike had lost once he'd become incapacitated by the Initiative. All things she'd forgotten he'd possessed—or laughed at him for losing. A memory flashed through her mind—a moment when she'd made fun of his loss, feeding him blood through a straw while he was chained up in Giles's bathtub.

"Howdy ho, neighbourinos." The jolly arrival of Xander broke the intensity that had started to smother those in the room, and Buffy couldn't have been more grateful. A friend. She had a friend that would offer a much needed buffer from the other situation she'd encountered in this place.

"Oh look," Spike drawled rudely. "It's Xan the Man. I'm so thrilled. And look, he's brought the only thing he's good for. Donuts."

Xander's smile slipped as he lowered the box, and Buffy was shocked to see her friend's face flare up with shame. He didn't puff up and get all self-righteous. Obviously, the threat of an unchipped Spike had been taken fully on board here and Xander's spiteful quips were non-existent.

"Hey, Xander," she said, stepping forward slowly.

For a moment he was silent, his gaze registering confusion. Then that boyish enthusiasm she'd always loved him for was back and he stepped forward to wrap her in one of the biggest and warmest hugs she'd ever had. She was going to hate revealing the truth to him, losing this closeness only he had offered.

"It's okay," he said, giving her one final squeeze before letting her go. "I know you aren't our Buffy, but I figured if you were you'd need a hug anyway, and you looked kind of lost as well, so hey, I do what I can to serve."

"How did you know I wasn't your Buffy?"

She knew that sheepish look that blossomed on his face. "Dawn phoned and told me what was going on."

Spike growled and looked more thunderous than before, his furious glare aimed straight at his daughter.

For her part, Dawn didn't look phased in the slightest.

"You know what? The Buffster and I are going to go and scour the town for the best pizza we can find. That might take us a couple hours." Xander grabbed her arm and tugged her away, both of them shrugging apologetically at Giles as he seemed like he wanted to go with them. Buffy couldn't thank Xander enough for getting her away from that potentially explosive and sticky situation.

"I'm going to shower—" they heard Giles improvise as the apartment door fell shut and Buffy and Xander slowed down to a walk.

Xander's car wasn't the same as in her dimension, so Buffy concluded that her Xander's choice had perhaps been influenced a lot by Anya. Her talk the previous night with Giles had revealed that Anya had never appeared in this dimension, and Buffy didn't know if that was a good thing or bad. She'd probably had the connections to locate the missing Buffy right from the start, but without the other slayer around, Buffy guessed that Cordelia's wish wasn't really needed.

"It's really good to see you." Xander pulled into a car park across from the pizza place at which, in her dimension, they were regulars.

"Thank you, Xan. I'm glad someone is happy to see me." Buffy sat staring ahead. Giles had warmed up to her through their conversation the night before, but she could still tell he was disappointed she wasn't his missing slayer. He'd been given a new purpose, however, to send her back home so he could get on with the business of renewing his search.

"Yeah, I saw Spike wasn't exactly over the moon."

"Well, to be fair, I did just tell him I dusted him in my world. That's bound to put any man out of sorts, especially a vamp."

Xander rested his hands on the steering wheel then searched for courage by staring out the front windscreen. "Dawn told me that you are her mother. I mean Buffy is."

She nodded. "Those monks have quite an imagination in your world. In mine she's just a pesky younger sister."

"I feel so stupid for not working it out," he said, shaking his head in self-doubt. "All these years and not once did Giles or Spike even hint that it was Buffy. I mean, she was my friend. I should have known." Xander fell forward and his head clunked with the steering wheel. "Why didn't she come back? Do you think she's dead?" Heartbroken brown eyes turned to her and Buffy stole a shuddering breath from the air.

"I wish I knew. I came home. I do know where I was, though—or where maybe your Buffy got stuck. I've offered to help Giles search for her before I go home. It's kind of a condition of getting home myself."

The hopeful smile on her friend warmed Buffy through. She so often only saw the pain her friends were feeling these days. It made a welcome change to give something light and hopeful.

"Can I ask you about my mom? How is she?" Buffy wanted nothing else but to find out in person how her mother was. She'd already concluded that whatever it was that had formed the tumour in her brain—whether it was the creation of Dawn or some other reason—it hadn't occurred here. This Joyce Summers was as healthy as a horse, alive and well and helping to raise her granddaughter, even though she didn't know it.

"Why don't you go and see her?" Xander's suggestion was so tempting, but seeing her seemed wrong to Buffy. This wasn't really her mother—she was another Buffy's mom, and for some reason just knowing that she was alive in someone's world meant everything to her. But, as glad as she was…

"In my world she's dead." A second to remember the pain of losing her and Buffy felt the urge to go and witness this Joyce in the flesh. "She had a brain tumour."

"Yeah," Xander said, the prospect of a Joyce with cancer not totally surprising. "She had one of those a couple years ago, but the docs got it all and said she'd made a miracle recovery."

Buffy sat in shock, desperate to know what the one thing was that had been different in her world for her mother to be taken from her forever while this one had lived.

"Maybe Joyce lived because she's waiting for Buffy to come home."

"Oh. Xander, I think you're right." Buffy flung her arms around her friend and hung on as if the world were about to fold in on them around his car. Emotion flowed over and she found it impossible to hold back the tears of grief she'd been holding in since Spike had crumbled around her stake, his eyes showing an emotion she had been unable to read. Was it accusation, or relief? She was going to replay that moment in her head for the rest of her life. Replay it and hate herself for not realising sooner just how much the vampire actually meant to her.

"He got a soul, you know. Stuff…happened and he didn't want to hurt me again, so he got a soul so he could be what he needed to be, and I never told him 'thank you.'"

Xander snickered. "Kind of hard to imagine our resident hard ass with a soul, acting all Peaches."

Buffy sat back and smirked. "Peaches? Just how much time do you hang out with Spike?"

That sheepish demeanour returned. "Spike? Not so much." His cheeks turned bright pink and he looked away from her, obviously embarrassed. "Dawn is another matter entirely."

"Oh my God, you've got the hots for Dawn." Buffy giggled. Of all the alterations in this world from hers… Spike was going to pitch a fit. "You're walking a dangerous line here. You really think Spike is going to go for you dating his daughter?"

"He's warming up to me." He looked so positive and hopeful Buffy couldn't hold in the laughter that bubbled up and became too much for a mere slayer to hold onto.

"It's your funeral, Xan."

"Ahh," he said, grinning from ear to ear as he opened his door and prepared to make their pizza stop. "But what a wonderful way to go."


	8. Chapter 8

**AN: **I'm back again! This is the last chapter I had in reserve and I am very excited to reveal that I've started writing the next chapter! Apparently it IS possible to come back to a fic after years being absent and try to pick things up. Your encouragement is greatly appreciated!

**Part Eight**

It was strange, Buffy thought, to be sitting down with Giles and Spike and planning on a path to find, well, _her_. While it had been one thing to greet all these people, both the same and different from her own world, it was another prospect entirely to come face-to-face with her own double.

Spike had listened in grim silence as she told her tale of what happened to her the year she'd run away. She'd glossed over her grief for Angel, sensing the blond vampire's anger was secondary to her own realisation that that part of her past didn't hurt anymore. Still, it was the vehicle that had projected her urgency for escape, on a bus out of the place where she couldn't seem to do anything right. Because of her Giles's girlfriend, Jenny Calendar, had been killed, Giles himself kidnapped, another slayer taken out and her friends attacked and in hospital. And to top it all off, her own mother couldn't bear to accept her as she was—whether she'd chosen this life or not.

She'd found freedom and anonymity in L.A. Sure, she'd found starvation and misery there too, but those things had sparked something in her, a sense that she deserved all of this and more after being the cause of so much devastation.

She'd only donned the Slayer cap when Lily had begged her to help find her boyfriend.

When she described the dimension she'd found and the scam to work teenagers to death, Giles turned to Spike and without words they expressed a new excitement.

"Never knew of that one, Rupes," Spike confided, and just like that hope sparked around the table. "Sounds like your average hell dimension, though. Makes sense how the Slayer could have served nine months of pregnancy in a matter of days."

Sure, Buffy thought, it might explain that, but none of them were willing to voice why she didn't come out of that dimension bearing her own babe in arms. They didn't have to say it, though. Without words the hope that had flourished not seconds before suddenly took a dive so low that no one could raise their head and look at anyone else.

A rapid knock on the door startled them out of their morose ponderings. Xander had been looking through a book on dimensions, with Dawn studying something in a language Buffy had no hope of understanding, and now with this unexpected prospect at the door, everyone seemed too on edge to make the trip to the door and answer it.

Buffy did the honours, flinging the door open and stumbling back as a very emotional Willow threw herself into the slayer's arms and wept. "Oh God, Buffy. I could hardly believe it could be you after all this time, but as soon as you showed up on my map, I booked a ticket and flew straight here."

Something told her that no one had informed Willow of the current state of affairs.

"Oh. Willow. How lovely to see you again. I take it England is treating you well?" Giles got awkwardly to his feet and made to advance on the overwrought girl, his glasses held absently in his hand. He looked to the floor, embarrassed, then glanced up and took in the redhead's excited face. He hated to destroy that hope when theirs had so recently been deflated.

"England?" Willow asked, confused. She sniffled and pulled away from where her head had rested on Buffy's shoulder, but she didn't let her friend go. "Oh, England has been just peachy. Why didn't anyone tell me Buffy was back?"

Rather than let the guilt swallow him whole, Giles peered closely at the girl who had once been quite shy and reserved, and flinched a little at what he saw. She was older now, yes, but there was an edge of hardness he'd never have expected this girl to project. "A more relevant question at this point might actually be how you yourself found out?"

"I—I've been doing locator spells every week since Buffy left." She stood before them all proud of her talent, appearing slightly arrogant that she'd been able to skill up in something completely in secret to them. And while Buffy was sure the circumstances in this world were vastly different to her own, she couldn't rid herself of the fear that Willow could turn dark and destructive toward them all in a blink of an eye.

"Why would you keep something like this a secret?" Giles asked. "I could have sent you to some of the best witches known to the Council. I never disagreed that you showed promise. Practising without supervision will weaken you in the long run. Some good solid instruction from the Coven would have helped you immensely." He turned away from his visitor and rubbed his forehead in realisation. "I've been such a fool. We could have had Althena or one of the others in our search all along. If only I'd gone behind the Council to ask her, but I feared the Coven is so much in the Council's pocket that they'd never consider it. I should have tried."

Before anything could get out of control—before hurt feelings could take hold and diminish the hope Willow had brought through the door with her—Buffy snagged her friend's attention and offered her a smile of regret. "I'm not your Buffy, Wills. I'm from another dimension, but I'm helping Spike and Giles find her so we can go bring her back."

Willow stared at her like she'd been kicked in the gut. Her hold fell from Buffy and she stepped back, her eyes tearing up again. "You aren't our Buffy?" She searched the room until she found Xander, and the way she started shaking made everyone finally aware of the devastation losing her friend had had on the redhead. "That's why I left, you know? I was too late giving Angel his soul and I knew Buffy would hate me for that."

"Oh, Willow." Buffy had no idea that Willow had felt that badly about not getting Angel's soul back into him in time. That Willow had lived with this guilt for so many years twisted her heart. "I can't say for sure what your Buffy thought, but I know I never blamed my Willow for that. You were never responsible for Angelus's actions. I was."

"Seems to me that gypsy bint is the one to blame. Keeping secrets never helps anyone."

Buffy shot Spike a disapproving glare, horrified he could be that insensitive to Giles—especially _this _Giles that had a less-adversarial relationship than the pair in her world. Even her Spike had never stooped so low as to raise the subject since he'd been chipped. Perhaps that had been a survival tactic for him, but for the rest of them, Jenny Calendar was a subject they had learned to mention sparingly when referring to any events of their past.

"Of course, we can't possibly blame Angelus himself. That would make too much sense, I suppose." Giles turned his back on all of them and Buffy felt the small intake of breath that he took to regain control in a way that wouldn't betray his emotion to the most oblivious of them.

Willow made her way into the apartment like an old lady, hand held out in front of her to grasp the sofa as soon as she reached it, and then carefully lowered herself into it.

"I left England so excited," she cried, her face a picture of devastation. "I thought Buffy was finally home, and then I was really angry because no one had called to tell me." She looked up and her eyes clashed with Buffy's, her expression becoming hard. "You're really not her?"

For a second Buffy felt scared of her friend in a way she never thought she would. This Willow was an unknown entity; no one in this world knew of what she was capable. They'd had glimpses of their Willow losing the plot, but this one seemed both more vulnerable and more secretive all at once.

Buffy shook her head slowly, suddenly fearful of what could explode in front of their faces, then immediately felt guilty when Willow covered her face with her hands and started shaking. Sobs of grief rocked her body until she was able to find some calm from whatever thoughts that ran through her head.

"I missed exams to come here. It's time to bring Buffy home. What have you been planning so far? Do you know where she might be?" Willow had turned from emotional wreck to 'I-mean-business' girl in a matter of seconds. Buffy felt dizzy from the change.

They crowded back around the dining table with Buffy quickly outlining what she thought the possibilities might be. Willow nodded, looked thoughtful, then started looking at books.

"Wow, this is so much like old times," she exclaimed excitedly, the grin Buffy was used to seeing firmly on her lips as hope seemed to finally infiltrate and spur on their activity. In that moment, Buffy caught a glimpse of the old Willow, and the new one that had returned to Sunnydale with her tail between her legs and fear a great burden on her shoulders. They'd all descended into darkness at one point or another, but the slayer suspected the Buffy of this world had never left it.

The question of the day remained: why?


End file.
